Natural resourcesOverconsumption and the environment

What is natural resource consumption?

Almost everything we do involves materials that have been extracted, processed, transformed, bought and sold, taxed and subsidised, and often shifted across vast distances.

Our economy is built around these raw materials – natural resources – like trees, gas, oil, metal ores, water and fertile land. Look at your smartphone. It likely contains cobalt from Africa, copper from Chile and aluminium from Australia.

Over the years, our appetite for raw materials has grown – from 1970 to 2010 our natural resource consumption more than tripled.

What is overconsumption?

Consuming more than we need creates a demand that the planet can't cope with. Natural resources are being gobbled up faster than the Earth can replenish them. It's also struggling to cope with the resulting waste and emissions. We take too much stuff from nature, make it into stuff we use – from chemicals to plastics to fertiliser to smart phones to meat – and then dispose of it carelessly into the atmosphere, the oceans and the land.

What are the effects of overconsumption?

The overconsumption of energy, water and raw materials worsens climate change and increases air pollution. It exhausts the planet's life support systems like the ones that provide us with fresh water, and leaves us short of materials critical to our health and quality of life – says a UN report.

Fresh water reserves, fish stocks and forests are shrinking, many species are under threat of extinction and fertile land is being destroyed.

"We urgently need to address this problem before we have irreversibly depleted the resources that power our economies and lift people out of poverty." Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, International Resource Panel.

Solutions to overconsumption

It's obvious we need to stop ravaging the planet.

Unfortunately, our 'I am what I buy' culture is an obstacle. It leads to farcical advertising slogans like "Be yourself" – as if wearing mass-produced fragrance can give you a true sense of who you really are.

There are more meaningful ways of defining identity [PDF], like belonging to something you love – a sports club, community choir, animal rescue sanctuary etc. We need public authorities to create more of these social opportunities to give people a sense of purpose beyond being a consumer.

Marketing can help. It's a powerful tool for changing behaviour. Once used to encourage smoking, it's now doing completely the opposite. If it can change our relationship with tobacco, it can change how we consume too. This means promoting activities and stuff that are good for people and planet.

And we need stronger laws. Companies should be made to report on every single aspect of their supply chains – from excavation right through to the shop window – including water and land use, and climate-changing emissions.

Following an investigation by Friends of the Earth, the UK government has indicated it will ban the practice of burnings on peatland. Peatlands are vital in the fight against climate breakdown, as they store millions of tonnes of carbon and prevent it polluting the atmosphere. Guy Shrubsole and Alasdair Cameron report.